Member Scott Martelle has a piece in the current Orange Coast magazine on Exene Cervenka, one of the key figures in the seminal roots-punk band, X, who now lives in suburban Orange County. From his story:
Things have changed from those raucous days. Punk has moved from rebellion to commodity. The originals are becoming nostalgia acts, the imitators are the scene-setters and, were it not for all the hair dye, this night’s crowd of 50-or-so fans would look like a battalion of Q-Tips. Mosh pit? Um, no.
Cervenka has changed, too. Age is rarely gentle, and in Cervenka’s case it has brought along multiple sclerosis, diagnosed nearly a year ago. She keeps on top of it with medication, and, so far, the mysterious degenerative disease hasn’t had much affect on her physically.
And she has settled, improbably, in Orange County after a four-year sojourn in rural Missouri where she pursued a whim to live “in a big stone house out in the middle of nowhere in the country with my husband, making music and art.” In fact, Cervenka’s band on The Detroit Bar stage looks like one from a Missouri country and western roadhouse, circa 1955.
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